Dolphins rookie Jerome Baker looks like prototype LB to Kiko Alonso

Jerome Baker is off to a good start with the Dolphins. (Allen Eyestone/The Post)

DAVIE — Jerome Baker has heard throughout his football career, including in the leadup to the NFL Draft, that he’s too small to be playing linebacker.

The Dolphins didn’t agree with that when they took him, and Baker’s new teammates buy in as well. As a third-round pick from Ohio State, he arrived with the endorsement of fellow Buckeye Raekwon McMillan, and he’s sold veteran Kiko Alonso after two weeks of practice during Organized Team Activities.

At 6-foot-3, 233 pounds, Alonso rejects the idea that he or anyone else with his build is undersized for the position. Neither he nor Baker is much larger than Miami’s starting safeties, but that’s partly by design because linebackers are required to do so much in coverage now.

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About the Authors

Jason Lieser has covered sports in Chicago, New Orleans and now South Florida

Joe Schad is a sports reporter for The Palm Beach Post who covers the Miami Dolphins. He previous covered sports for ESPN, the Orlando Sentinel and Newsday.

After 19 years as a sports writer, copy editor and assistant sports editor at The Miami Herald, Hal Habib joined The Palm Beach Post's sports department in 1998. Areas of coverage range from the Olympics, Kentucky Derby and Super Bowl to local sports.